On the final day of our 2018 Spring Break adventure, we flew the PA60 into a private airport at Ox Ranch, which is near Uvalde, Texas...almost as far as you can get from anything resembling civilization. Ox Ranch is the home of www.drivetanks.com, which offers a number of options for driving tanks, shooting tank guns, artillery, and machine guns. Our mission was to drive a Leopard 1. We didn't shoot any of the machine guns or artillery, as I really wasn't interested in that. They have a M4e8 and a T-34 that you can both drive and shoot, but shooting the cannon is accomplished by standing outside the tank and pulling a string, which seemed a bit disconnected to me. They don't offer firing the cannon of the Leopard 1's they have. They also have a Chieftain you can crush a car with.

On a side note, I set a new personal best in the PA60, achieving a ground speed of 383 miles per hour while cruising at 21,000 feet.

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All of these automatic weapons are functional, and available for rental.

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Anyhow, enough of the little guns...They have at least four Leopard 1's there. This is the one I drove:

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T-34

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M4e8

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Anyhow, back to the Leopard 1 drive. This one is a Leopard 1a5, which can be identified as such because it has a cast turret, rather than a fabricated/welded one the 1a4 has. It has a ten cylinder diesel engine, that can be removed and replaced by two mechanics in 20 minutes. They were in the process of pulling an engine on one of their Leo's while I was there, and I got to observe a little of it.

The Leopard was surprisingly easy to drive (poorly). I think a driver should be no taller than about 5'4", as I had to splay my legs out wide to fit in the driver's compartment and access the pedals. There's no way at 6'2" that I could drive with the driver's hatch closed.

Steering is accomplished by using a yoke not unlike what you'd find in an airplane. The yoke turns easily about 20º off center either left or right, before it hits a "soft stop". If you continue beyond this stop, the tank turns much more aggressively. There's a steering lock control at the top of the steering column, and a horn button towards the bottom.

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Apologies for the white legs. This was the first time this year they'd seen sun. When we left Sedona it was 35º and I was wearing jeans. It was 95º in S. Texas, so just before our initial descent into Texas, I changed into shorts. Autopilots are nice sometimes.

There is no clutch pedal. The accelerator pedal is about a foot high, and about six inches wide. The brake pedal is similar. Layout of the pedals is just like you'd find in a passenger car. The transmission appears to be a hydraulic shuttle shift type, with 4 forward gears, no reverse that I observed, neutral, and a position for pivoting the tank 360º in place...which drivetanks.com doesn't allow. To select a gear, a short lever on the right is moved forward or backwards to the desired gear. The movement is smooth and effortless. Once underway, the next higher or lower gear can be selected by easing off the accelerator just a little, then flicking the lever to the desired position.

The diesel engine has a redline at 2,200 r.p.m. The instructor told me to limit the r.p.m. to less than 1,700, though once I got up to 2,000 r.p.m. briefly. The tank actually has an ignition key, which surprised me. There's a simple 3-step starting procedure, and you're off.

Driver's instrument panel:

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I never used much more than half throttle, but the tank accelerated surprisingly well. It felt like a Cadillac, floating over the terrain. I drove mostly in third gear, and probably reached a top speed of 30 mph. There's no speedometer in the tank (who cares about speed limits when you're driving a tank?).

I was amazed with how comfortable the ride was. At one point the instructor had me intentionally hit a 2' deep pothole, and the tank barely shuddered.

The drive lasted a total of about fifteen minutes, and it was a blast! I'm sure the tank would be more difficult to drive outside of a controlled environment like this one, or in an environment where people are shooting at you, but I left simply stunned with how easy it had been to operate.

I'd highly recommend drivetanks.com to anyone who would like to experience a small taste of what real-life tanking is. Here's a video of my noob driving:

I guess I was incorrect. There is a reverse position on the gearshift...so the transmission looks like it would have 4 reverse gears. "V" is forward, "N" is neutral, "R" is self-explanatory, and "W" is the position for traversing in place. This lever is placed in V for forward, then the lever above with the round knob is used to select gears 1-4.